mirko DANELUZZO: The music center is located on the waterfront in Toronto, an evident part of the city’s skyline, representing the vibrant on growing music scene. The project uses the preexisting Canada Malting Silos industrial building to convert it into the contemporary form of a cultural contamination beacon. The project is defined by a series of layers that have different performative qualities embedded that modify the character of the building as a person flows seamlessly through the space and experiences the curated environment of the building.

The layer system generates a collection of musical experiences, from the strong typology of the theaters characterized by a clean geometry, to the eroded geometry that conforms the spaces in-between, research and education institutions, and knits the project to the surrounding context.

The place gives you something to build the script to design something unique: Toronto is characterized by severe winters and hot summers, then the external layer works as a protective skin in winter thanks the slow formation of an artificial ice barrier in between the fissures, and wind catchers to allows a natural ventilation in summer.

The eroded geometry is dealing with the aesthetic idea of “matte”: matte is the finishing of dull and flat, without a shine surfaces. Matte stores the time’s patina, it absorbs the context, it becomes the context.

“wrinkle tissue” – a matter of affection – an aditus for contamination

sP: what or who influenced this project?

mD: …, Steve Mann’s “being undigital”, David Cronenberg’s movies, …

sP: what were you reading/listening to/watching while developing this project?